4 September 2015

Book Beginnings : Harper Boys!

As I mentioned on Wednesday, I really enjoy Ginger Scott's books - I've enjoyed every book I've read by her so far! When I found out that she had another book coming out next month I jumped at the opportunity to feature it here on the blog. Besides today and the cover reveal I did on Wednesday there's 1 post more this moth.
Since her new novel is a sequel to Wild Reckless I thought it would be fun to do a Harper Boys book beginnings as both books follow the same family - the Harper's - but each book focuses on one brother. According to Ginger Scott you can read both of the books as standalones but you get a better sense of the background and everything if you read the first one.
So, now we've gone through all that, let's move on the the book beginnings!

A bit about Wild
Reckless

Kensington Worth had a vision for her senior year. It
involved her best friends, her posh private school in downtown Chicago and time
alone with her piano until her audition was perfected, a guaranteed ticket into
the best music programs in the world.

Instead, a nightmare took over.

It didn’t happen all at once, but her life unraveled
quickly—a tiny thread that evil somehow kept pulling until everything precious
was taken from her. She was suddenly living miles away from her old life,
trapped in an existence she didn’t choose—one determined to destroy her from
the inside, leaving only hate and anger behind. It didn’t help that her
neighbor, the one whose eyes held danger, was enjoying every second of her
fall.

Owen Harper was trouble, his heart wild and his past the
kind that’s spoken about in whispers. And somehow, his path was always
intertwined with Kensington’s, every interaction crushing her, ruining her hope
for any future better than her now. Sometimes, though, what everyone warns is
trouble, is exactly what the heart needs. Owen Harper was consumed with
darkness, and it held onto his soul for years. When Kensington looked at him,
she saw a boy who’d gotten good at taking others down when they threatened his
carefully balanced life. But the more she looked, the more she saw other things
too—good things…things to admire.

Things…to love. Things that made her want to be reckless.

And those things…they were the scariest of all.

So, I've already read and enjoyed Wild Reckless - read my review here - and I give you the prologue from the book:

The caramel aroma that scented the air was
thick. The smells of the Annual Wilson Orchard Apple Fest always began to
permeate the streets the night before. Thin lines of smoke trailed from windows
and front porches down residential streets of Woodstock, awakening the noses
and stirring hungry bellies one at a time until they found the Harper
residence.This was going to be Owen Harper’s first
year at the festival. His dad took off special from his job at the warehouse
just so he could take his middle son to the hometown tradition where the town’s
best bakers lined up their pies made of the fruits from Old Man Wilson’s trees.Owen liked the pies. He always ate them
when his parents or grandparents brought them home. But what he really wanted
to do was go on the Ferris wheel. His older brother James had been to the
festival twice. James was ten, and he’d always been tall, so he could pass the
height requirement easily and ride alone. But Owen was not yet five, so he
would need a chaperone. His mother worked long hours at the hospital, and his
father rarely got a weekend off. But today…today was an exception. And today,
Owen Harper would ride the Ferris wheel and look out over the town until he
could see the roof of his house.He promised to bring his younger brother
Andrew to the festival one day too. He’d be old enough to walk to the festival
on his own then, and tall enough to serve as his brother’s chaperone—and
together they’d both feel like they could fly.Owen’s dad talked to himself a lot. It
wasn’t anything unusual to Owen. He’d often watched his father have arguments
within his own mind, his lips muttering fragments of words over his cereal. He
learned to ignore the nonsensical tirades his dad would have with someone who
seemed to be invisible while he drove his son to school. And the long hours on
the porch at night, when his dad would stare off at nothing for hours at a
time—those were routine, too. Owen loved those nights the best, because he
would get to lie in the hammock, and sometimes he’d wake there in the morning.Bill Harper was talking to himself a lot
today. And everyone was staring. But Owen didn’t understand why. Nothing was
unusual.His father paid their admission, and his
son breathed in deeply, his lungs so full of the caramel, cinnamon, and apple
fragrances that he was sure he could actually taste them.

I remember loving the beginning and I definitely hope you do too!

A bit about Wicked Restless

Andrew Harper grew up in a house marked by tragedy. His
older brother Owen did his best to shelter him, but you can only be protected
from life’s pain for so long. Eventually, you end up just feeling numb…and
isolated.

Loneliness was the one constant in Andrew’s life. Until one
girl, met by chance in a high school hallway, changed everything. Emma Burke
was a mystery and all that was beautiful in this world, the only air Andrew
ever wanted to breathe. She took the lonely away, and filled it with hope and
color, and Andrew would do anything to keep her safe, happy and whole.

But sometimes, what feels good and right is what ends up
hurting us the most. And when Andrew and Emma are faced with an impossible
decision, Andrew is tested to see just how far he’s willing to go for the girl
who owns his heart.

Cuts are deep.

Scars are left behind.

And revenge beckons.

When Andrew finally gets his chance, in college, five years
after his first love broke him completely, he finds out old feelings don’t
really disappear just because you say you hate someone. The more he tries to
avenge all that he believes he lost, the more he uncovers the real story of
what happened years before.

Love is wicked. But a restless heart is never satisfied
beating on its own. Can Andrew and Emma make it right before it's too late, or
will the ties that bind them now destroy their only chance at a future?

Chapter 1Andrew Harper, Age 16Normally, I don’t care what clothes I wear
when I leave for school in the early morning. I spend my days with people I
don’t really know. Most of my freshman year of high school was on a college
campus—my curse for being smart.I say curse because unlike my older
brother, Owen, I don’t have normal friends. I don’t get to go to high school
dances or hang out at football games. Not that Owen ever did, but the point is,
he could have if he wanted to. I get to go to what’s called the Excel Program.
I get to learn physics and advanced calculus. The trade-off is I’ll probably
get into any college I want, get any job I want, and find the entire process to
be easy.The curse—I’m alone.My friends were Owen’s friends. Always
three years older; always inviting me to things out of pity; always keeping me
out of trouble but just out of its reach. Protecting me. That was the line. My
life was on the periphery. I heard it from Owen since the day I started grade
school, and my mother echoed those words whenever I would protest that I
couldn’t go to the party with Owen or hang out in the woods with him and his
friends.“He’s only protecting you,” she’d say.Protecting me.Choking me.When Owen graduated, so did his friends.
And my small sliver of a social life slipped away piece by piece as people went
off to college or to find jobs in some town that wasn’t small. Then my mom sold
our house to help pay for my grandfather’s care, and I moved into a two bedroom
apartment with neighbors in their sixties on one side and a vacant unit on the
other.Sophomore year is shaping up to be more
isolating. My only friend my age, a guy I barely tolerated named Matt who I met
during a torturous year when both of our mothers decided putting us in Boy
Scouts was a good idea, moved to Guam. Not the next town over. Not California.
Not any place I could convince my mother was safe enough for me to visit—escape
to. The fucker moved to Guam.I used to go to Matt’s house and spend
hours playing video games. You don’t talk when you play video games, which is
what made my friendship with Matt work. Now, I go to school then come home. I
study and have dinner with my mom and her boyfriend, Dwayne Chessman, a guy
we’ve known for years that teaches at the high school—the one I don’t get to go
to because I’m so smart.In the evening, I walk to the rink in the
middle of Old Town, to a place called the Ice Palace, and I skate until my feet
have blisters. I sprint and stop enough times that I wear paths in the ice so
deep they need to fill them with water when I leave. This is the only place I can go to feel
something. On weekends, there are enough guys there to get a game going, but
during the week, when I can come, it’s usually only me. I’ve always skated, but
when my brother Owen left, I became obsessed with hockey. Seems the skills I
lack at throwing a ball are made up for in my ability to move a puck. That, and
I’m incredibly fast. It’s not the competition. I couldn’t give a shit about
winning something. For me, it’s the rawness, the hunt. Chasing something,
taking something from someone, hurting them to get it and not caring about how
they look lying on the ice in my wake. I don’t operate under those morals
anywhere else. But I think, maybe, there’s a dark part of me that needs it. And
I need to keep it on the ice.Usually, though, I’m alone out there. So
instead I push myself until I can barely breathe, sometimes until my chest
burns and I vomit. I push until Gary, the guy who cleans up the joint, is
coughing under his breath, leaning on the exit as he taps on his watch, his
subtle signal to me to get my ass off the ice so he can go home.My feet are sore today, but that’s the last
thing I’m going to remember. This is the day so many things are going to
change, the day I start caring about what I wear when I leave my apartment in
the morning. Illinois passed a law that every high school student needs to take
PE, even the smart students who don’t go to a real high school. I protested at
first, dreading the bus ride I’ll have to endure, the awkward blue uniform and
my assured complete lack of allies for dodge ball. But those anxieties are
escaping me now. I saw her the second I broke through the athletic department
door, sitting against the wall of the PE office, her legs outstretched, the
blue fabric of her perfect dress tucked underneath her knees. Her hair is the
color of mahogany, and it twists in spirals, like a tornado rushing down her
shoulders and spine, a dark storm against her cream skin.I sit opposite her, sliding down against
the wall, stretching my legs out until the soles of my shoes tap the bottom of
hers. I do this on purpose. I want to see her eyes. Her gaze comes up quickly,
and she pulls her feet in fast, careful to tuck the bottom of her dress
underneath more tightly, hiding her modesty. Her eyes are gray, a dark gray,
like charcoal.I don’t know her name, and I’m not sure
I’ll like her when she speaks. But I know I’ll never forget her. Her smile,
however fast it comes and goes in this moment, coincides with the first full
breath I’ve taken in years.